Twenty years ago, I used to walk across Stockton’s Trinity Green daily, shuttling between my rented student house and lectures at Durham University’s Queen’s Campus… though in those days, it wasn’t called Trinity Green; it was just a ruined church.

Twelve years ago, I got around to writing about the slightly grisly history of the ruined church that stands at its center—and the graveyard that has now become the Green itself.

Wandering across the Green again, I reflected on how lovely the space has become, mostly thanks to work that was done some years after I moved away from Stockton. It’s become a great bit of urban greenery, with the once frequently vandalized and graffitied ruined church now sensitively fenced off, adding a beautiful atmospheric centerpiece.

It’s easy to imagine an alternative history in which the ruined church was flattened and its churchyard redeveloped into a car park or something similar. Instead, Stockton Council had the foresight to create something really special.